Leading Edge Spring 2012

The Institute for the Environment (IfE) is celebrating its successes. On February 26th 2012, IfE was amongst the ‘Diamond Jubilee’ winners of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Further and Higher Education. Head of the Institute for the Environment, Professor Susan Jobling and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Jenks were presented with the prize by Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at a ceremony held at Buckingham Palace. The Prize is in recognition and celebration of IfE’s outstanding work which is deemed to have had a real and practical impact for the benefit of human progress. Also present at the Palace were former Head, Professor John Sumpter, Chancellor Lord Wakeham, Vice-Principal Mansoor Sarhadi and several of the postdocs and students from the Institute. Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Jenks said:

“Brunel University is delighted to receive this recognition of our globally influential research carried out by the Institute for the Environment. We pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of research at Brunel University and the work of the Institute for the Environment’s research teams is a fine example of our research excellence.”

IfE’s research team secured the award for the global impact of their research leading to protection of the environment from hormones and pollutants. Their winning entry described the work of research teams headed by Professors Sumpter and Jobling and Drs Routledge and Scrimshaw spanning two decades. The story began with the uncovering of a link between exposure to water pollution and sex change in male fish, and continued with the realisation that pharmaceuticals consumed by people are inefficiently removed by water treatment and pass into our rivers and our drinking water. It also provided the impetus for global research into this issue, including human health research also linking chemical exposure with declining sperm counts, increased incidence of male genital abnormalities, and testicular, breast and prostate cancer.

Collectively, the Institute’s scientists contributed in a major way to the development of a new branch of toxicology termed “endocrine disruption” and have been actively

involved in finding ways to assess and manage the risks posed by several endocrine disrupting chemicals, including those found in plastics, detergents and contraceptive pill hormones. Impact through collaboration with the chemical, pharmaceutical and water industries to understand and manage the risk posed by these chemicals was an area of excellence deserving of recognition. Government and industry actions stimulated by the IfE’s work include new waste water treatment processes, and restrictions and bans on the production of

certain chemicals.

IfE was the first to highlight the oestrogenic effects of phthalate plasticisers and parabens (found in shampoos and cosmetics), leading to further research on their hormone disrupting properties, particularly in humans. This led to restrictions on their use in several European countries and a vigorous, current debate on their use in the USA and elsewhere. For example, children’s toys can no longer contain certain phthalates. Similarly, in mainland Europe, a European Union risk assessment on nonylphenols in industrial detergents was undertaken and partially as a result of research led by the Institute, restrictions on the use of nonylphenol for such applications have now been imposed across Europe.

Mission and EthosThe Institute’s research on chemicals in the environment is part of a broader research portfolio aimed at protection of life on Earth from environmental hazards, both present and future.

IfE’s staff and postgraduates are trained to provide explanations and solutions to environmental problems and to transform their research into useful knowledge for decision makers and consumers. Every project they undertake, whether it be analysing air pollution and its impact on human health, gauging the threat posed by the presence of specific chemicals in our water, or investigating what major climatic events in the past can tell us about the future, is rooted in the following guiding principles:

1. That understanding environmental changes and hazards is vital for the well being of the global community.

2. International collaboration is essential for effective and efficient assessment and management of environmental risks; no person is an island and nor is any nation.

3. That public understanding of our research, is a vital step in determining it’s impact on society

Continued on page 3...

Institute for the Environment Celebrates Queen’s Anniversary Prize

LeadingEdgeResearch at Brunel University

LeadingEdge Issue 23 Spring 2012

(l to r): Chancellor Lord Wakeham, Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Jenks and Professor Susan Jobling

LeadingEditorialLE2LE2

Contents

Institute for the Environment 1

Editorial 2

IfE Continued... 3

Research News 4-7

EPSRC First Grant Success

Disabled Comedians

AHRC Fellowship

Royal Society Weather Project

Research Profiles 8-9 Professor Barbara Prainsack

Professor Nigel Saunders

Professor Ashok Bhattacharya

Professor Andreas Kortenkamp

Research Contracts 10-12

Research Round-Up 12

ESRC Demand Management

RSDO Contacts

LeadingEdge focuses on research at Brunel University.

Copy date for the next issue of LeadingEdge is 6 May 2012

For details on how to submit articles please contact Vic Gill in the Research Support and Development Office on ext 67398 or email [email protected]

Editor: Content and Production Vic Gill, RSDO

University Photographer: Sally Trussler, Media Services

Printed by: Brunel University Press

Recycle When you have finished with this newsletter please recycle it.

Welcome to Leading EdgeWelcome to the latest edition of Leading Edge, the 23rd issue since its launch.

Since the last issue HEFCE have published their panel criteria and working methods,

the rules the research excellence framework will follow. This contains few surprises, and

as expected has eliminated much of the diversity in how different disciplines conduct

the assessment within their units of assessment. In symbolic terms, this publication

represents the firing of the REF starting pistol, and our preparations for the exercise

are now well and truly underway. However, we have nothing to fear from the REF, and

indeed the improvements we have made in the quality of our research since 2008, will, I

am sure, stand us in very good stead.

Space in this edition is devoted to the award of the Queen’s Anniversary Prize to the

Institute of the Environment for their research in eco-toxicology. This, together with Celia

Brackenridge’s award of an OBE in the New Year Honours for her research on equality

and child protection in sport, demonstrates the high regard in which our very best

research is now held.

Other recent successes, though not on the same scale, include two recent JISC

awards for research information management. The first project is to explore the

feasibility of a national shared service for the reporting of research information from

research organisations to funders. The project is lead by King’s College London and

other partners include the British Library, Exeter and Edinburgh. The second project

aims to increase the availability of validated evidence of research impact for research

organisations, funders and policy bodies. Being involved in these projects is important

because it allows Brunel to have input into the future direction of UK research policies

within universities.

This edition of Leading Edge contains numerous further examples of the success we are

generating as our research culture continues to improve, and we receive further external

recognition of our progress.

With best wishes to you all

Professor Geoff Rodgers

PVC (Research)

LeadingEdge

ResearchNews LE3

Living with DisabilityProfessor Taeko Wydell, Co-Director of the Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging (CCNI), gave the Key-Note Speech at the 2nd International Symposium on “Living with Disability” held at the University of Toyama in Japan on 10-11 December 2011.

Her speech entitled “Living with Developmental Dyslexia” based on her research findings from her projects at Brunel (funded by the ESRC, British Academy, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, etc.) provided the participants with helpful insights into dealing with world-wide problem of “dyslexia”. Her speech was very well received and featured in the Mainichi Shinbun, a national newspaper in Japan.

Importing and Exporting Babies: Cross-Border SurrogacyThe Family Law Research Group held a seminar on 25th January 2012 as part of the Brunel Law School (BLS) research seminar series. The speaker was Dr Caroline Jones, Senior Lecturer at Southampton Law School and a co-founder and co-director of the Health Ethics and Law network at the University of Southampton. She has published extensively in the field of assisted reproduction and her paper, which dealt with the regulation of surrogacy, was entitled: ‘Pretty Vulnerable? “Protecting” children in cross-border reproductive arrangements’. The seminar was attended by BLS staff and students and Dr Jones’ insightful paper gave rise to a lively discussion. The seminar was not only enlightening and interesting but also very enjoyable.

For further information contact: [email protected]

New PublicationDr Thomas Owens (School of Engineering and Design) and co-author Cyril Onwubiko (Research Series) were pleased to see the publication of their new book in January. Published by IGI Global, Situational Awareness in Computer Network Defense: Principles, Methods and Applications provides academia and organisations insights into practical and applied solutions, frameworks, technologies, and implementations for situational awareness in computer networks. This book presents situational awareness solutions in Computer Network Defense (CND) currently being researched or deployed. For further information contact: [email protected]

Continued from page 1...

Research InterestsAs a whole, IfE’s research spans an impressive range of disciplines and scales, organised into the following key areas:

• Climate Change and Natural Hazards: the study of climate changes and hazards as they occurred millions of years in the past and into the near future (sea level change, storms and flooding, earthquakes and mass extinctions).

•Environmental chemistry: the fate and behaviour of environmental pollutants in the environment.

•Environmental and human toxicology: multidisciplinary studies concerning harmful effects of chemicals, on wildlife and humans.

• Environmental Health: the study of public health effects of environmental hazards and on effects of policy actions to reduce effects.

The success and high profile of the Institute have been instrumental in attracting high-quality students both from within the UK and overseas. The close relationships with industry, Government bodies and NGOs, have been particularly important in this regard. Not only has the Institute trained PhD students funded by bodies like the Environment Agency recruited because of the experience of working together on this project, it is also successful in supplying other trained environmental scientists to industry and policy. This sort of triangulation between science, business and policy is an area where the Institute excels.

Building links with industrial partners is something that is in the DNA of the institution as a whole, and IfE can be counted as one of the leading exponents of this. There is widespread international respect for the work of the team as shown through the variety of agencies working with the Institute. IfE is working with the European Environment Agency, the European Commission and with agencies in Japan and Australia to help shape environmental policy. IfE is also leading European Union and World Health Organisation – UNEP updates on the science of endocrine disruption. In education, IfE is leading a new initiative to launch a global institute of postgraduate environmental education and research.

Recent DevelopmentsCreated in 2004, the Institute for the Environment has grown to almost double its original size by making strategic appointments in ecotoxicology (Dr Jayne Brian), climate change (Dr Andrew Russell, see page 7) and human toxicology (Professor Andreas Kortenkamp, see page 9 and Dr Elisabete Silva). The most recent appointments (Prof. Kortenkamp and Dr. Silva) brought an influx of post doctoral scientists and PhD students. The toxicology of chemical mixtures is one of Prof. Kortenkamp’s areas of expertise, and of great concern and growing importance for industry and policymakers, ensuring that the work of the Institute will remain in demand. It is also a logical development of the work undertaken so far within the Institute and will enable even more collaboration with other areas where the University has strengths.

Future PlansIfE aims to continue to be successful in conducting research that results in protection of the society it serves. The Institute’s work on chemicals in the environment contributes to a positive change in regulation and management of chemical hazards on an international scale, with endorsement from across the globe. Currently, IfE scientists are at the forefront of building and defending evidence-based regulatory cases against certain endocrine disrupting chemicals and are educating regulators and decision makers about mixtures of chemicals.

The long-term aim of the Institute is to foster research and education that makes wildlife and human populations healthy and sustainable. As such, in addition to studying and explaining problems, IfE sees itself as engaged in finding solutions and is very clearly building this into future plans.

More InformationFor further information contact: [email protected]

IfE WWW www.brunel.ac.uk/ife

IfE Facebook www.facebook.com/BrunelIfE

IfE Twitter http://twitter.com/Brunel_IfE

LE4 ResearchNews

EPSRC First Grant Success to Research Vehicle Safety Systems Dr Efstathios Velenis (School of Engineering and Design) has recently been awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) First Grant award to the value of £99,820. The 18 month project titled “Active Limit Handling for Enhanced Passenger Vehicle Safety” will start in April 2012 and seek to research vehicle active safety systems.

Road traffic injuries have become a leading cause of death globally accounting for 1.2 million deaths annually, and will rise in worldwide rank to sixth place as a major cause of death (including decease), by 2020. It is encouraging that, despite the constant increase of the number of vehicles in Europe during the last decade, the number of fatalities demonstrates a slow decay. This can be partly attributed to the enormous improvements in vehicle safety, through the introduction of both passive and active safety systems. In this project, Dr Velenis and his team will implement newly acquired knowledge on expert vehicle control near the limit of handling, and exploit the enhanced control authority available in modern vehicles to design novel active safety systems. MIRA, one of the world’s leading independent providers of vehicle product engineering, testing, certification and research, has expressed their great interest in exploring the limits of the handling capacity of vehicles with modern power/drive-train configurations and the potential benefits in active safety. The company has agreed to offer their support to this project by means of technical consultation and active participation in the management and execution of the proposed research tasks.

Current active safety systems, such as the Electronic Stability Control (ESC), aim at restricting the operation of the vehicle within a region characterised by an on-demand increase of tyre forces, away from the tyre’s maximum force capacity. With this project, Dr Velenis and his team will explore the benefits of using the whole of the available performance of the vehicle in accident avoidance, for instance in

situations where vehicle agility and ability to quickly change direction of travel is critical. That is, instead of restricting the vehicle response within a stable region, the control system will allow the safe operation of the vehicle in unstable regimes. The new system will use the enhanced control authority introduced by electric/hybrid drivetrains and drive-by-wire (DBW) controls, such as differential braking and active steering, to actively assist the driver to safely exploit the handling limits of the vehicle during emergency manoeuvring. Initially the cornering limits of vehicles with different DBW controls and drivetrain configurations will be characterised by obtaining steady-state cornering conditions with the tyres operating near their maximum force capacity. Consequently, linear and nonlinear control designs will be tested for the stabilisation of the vehicle under extreme operating conditions. The control design will be implemented in a high fidelity simulation environment using experimentally validated vehicle models provided by MIRA. The implementation strategy will entail the detection of emergency situations and account for the driver’s intention. Initially, the power/drive-train configuration of MIRA’s prototype hybrid vehicle (H4V), which uses two high-torque independently controlled electric motors to drive the rear wheels, will be considered as a case study. Consequently, the control design will be extended to several drivetrain and DBW controls configurations, such as fully electric all-wheel-drive vehicles and combinations of brake-by-wire, active steering and active torque distribution systems.

The proposed research will contribute to an in depth understanding of the operation of road vehicles near the limits of their handling capacity and the potential for advanced handling control using modern drive-by-wire and power/drive-train configurations. It is envisioned that this work will lead to innovative approaches to vehicle control, and will have an immediate impact in the area of vehicle safety.

For more information please contact: [email protected]

EPSRC First Grant Seeks Diesel-like Fuel Economy from a Petrol EngineA newly funded EPSRC First Grant project (£99,643) is currently underway within the Centre for Advanced Powertrain and Fuels (CAPF) in the School of Engineering and Design. The project will attempt to practically achieve fuel economy near to that of a modern diesel road car but from a petrol-fuelled engine.

The specific aim of the work is to help bring to market a novel, clean and efficient form of engine combustion known as Controlled Auto-Ignition (CAI). The basic principle of CAI is to invoke auto-ignition of a fresh mixture at multiple sites throughout the combustion chamber, as illustrated in the rendered image of the engine cylinder. This results in a process that is relatively fast and more akin to an idealised combustion event. The arising ability to trap high quantities of previously burned gases and operate the engine at or near to wide-open throttle at low engine load enables significant improvement in fuel consumption; up to ~45% of the energy in the fuel can be released as useful work compared with ~25% in a typical gasoline SI engine. An additional benefit of CAI is that low peak gas temperatures are generated, with up to 99% reduction in engine-out emissions of nitrogen oxides also possible.

The work is being led by Dr. Alasdair Cairns, who took up his first academic post at Brunel in 2010 following a period of nine years within the automotive powertrain industry. The project will investigate novel auto-ignition timing control using special optically accessed

research engines and builds upon the internationally renowned reputation of the Centre for Advanced Powertrain and Fuels for CAI combustion research.


Figure 1: Rendered image of the multiple ignition events typical of CAI combustion

LE5ResearchNews

Funding Success for Research on Disabled ComediansDr Sharon Lockyer from the School of Social Sciences has successfully secured a £3,080 small research grant from the Sir Halley Stewart Trust for a project entitled “Exploring the Potential of Disabled Comedians in Improving the Lives and Experiences of Disabled People”. The British live comedy circuit has been transformed recently by the increased presence and prominence of disabled comedians, yet little research focuses on disabled comedians, their performances and their audience reception. This innovative and timely research project, which is supported by The Big Difference Company, organisers of Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival, will include performance observations of disabled comedians, interviews with disabled comedians and interviews with disabled and non-disabled comedy audiences in Edinburgh, Leicester and London. The project will examine the social and political implications of live comedy performed by disabled performers and its potential for improving the lives and experiences of disabled people. More specifically, the research will examine how, or to what extent, live comedy can be used as a vehicle to subvert, challenge, critique and move beyond dominant stereotypes and caricatures surrounding disability. Further it will uncover the ways in which disabled comedians and their performances can have positive impact on audiences’ understandings, perception and appreciation of disability. The expected outcomes include a series of academic journal articles and an industry-related dissemination event at Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival. In addition to being of interest to academics and students in social sciences, research findings will be of relevance to disability charities, cultural policy makers, comedy educators, comedy promoters, comedians and the public.

For more information contact: [email protected]

Funding to Understand the Dynamics of Information SystemsDr. Pamela Abbott (School of Information Systems, Computing and Maths) has been successful in obtaining a research grant to the value of €70,000 (£49,079) under the aegis of two French institutions: CIGREF Foundation and the Sophia-Antipolis Foundation. The one year project falls under an international, jointly sponsored program of research, known as ISD (Information System Dynamics) which aims to understand the dynamics of Information Systems use and their impact on society and business. This successful proposal was the result of a three year collaborative research effort between Dr. Abbott and two other researchers, Dr. Yingqin Zheng, formerly of DeMontfort University in Leicester, but now affiliated with Royal Holloway, University of London, and Professor Rong Du of Xidian University, Xi’an, China. Dr. Abbott and Dr. Zheng are joint coordinators of the project whilst Professor Du will be the main consortium research partner.

The project is also supported by the following additional industry consortium partners: VanceInfo Technologies Inc., a Chinese-based IT consulting and solution provider established since 1995 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange; Emerging Markets Research Group Ltd (EMRG), which sponsors events, research and consultancy promoting the global sourcing industry especially related to emerging economies; and Gateway Asia, a business network that establishes trade links particularly to India and China for SMEs and a long-standing strategic partner to Brunel University.


Professor Hua Zhao’s election to SAE FellowshipProfessor Hua Zhao, Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department in the School of Engineering and Design, has been elected SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) fellow in October 2011. SAE International is a US based global association that serves more than 129,000 engineers and related technical experts from the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries.

According to SAE, “SAE Fellow status is one of the highest grades of membership bestowed by SAE International. It recognises outstanding engineering and scientific accomplishments by an individual that have resulted in meaningful advances in automotive, aerospace and commercial-vehicle technology. The program, established in 1975, recognizes an average of 20 worldwide recipients for this prestigious grade each year.” Only about six academic staff and engineers in the UK have achieved such recognition over the last 30 years. He will be formally recognised during the SAE 2012 World Congress and Exhibition in Detroit, U.S.A on 23 April 2012. Hearing the news, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Jenks commented:

“Many congratulations for this. This is indeed a very great honour and one richly deserved for your major contribution to research. Thank you for your kind words about Brunel and we are all proud to have you as a colleague.”


New Lecturer in LawPrior to joining the Brunel Law School, Dr. Ayesha Shahid was Lecturer in Law at University of Hull from 2008-2011. She has also held full-time and part-time lecturerships at the Faculty of Law, University of Peshawar, Pakistan and University of Warwick. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of Islamic law, Public Law, Family Law, Gender and the Law and International Human Rights Law. Her monograph titled “Silent Voices, Untold Stories Women Domestic Workers and their Struggle for Empowerment” has been published by the Oxford University Press. It is a socio-legal study about law, empowerment and access to justice for women domestic workers in Pakistan. Her research articles have been published in renowned journals and she has carried out a number of research projects for Asia Foundation, International Labour Organisation, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Higher Education Commission Pakistan. Ayesha is also a recipient of the prestigious Warwick Postgraduate Research Fellowship Award in 2002. She has also received a Postgraduate Diploma in teaching ‘Human Rights Law’ from Columbia University, USA in 2000.

For further information contact: [email protected]

ResearchNewsLE6

AHRC Research Fellowship SuccessDr Anshuman Mondal has been awarded an AHRC Research Fellowship, commencing in September 2012 for a project entitled, ‘After Rushdie: Muslims, Freedom of Expression and the Politics of Controversy’. The value of the award is £94,688 for the nine-month fellowship.

The aim of the project is to examine recent Muslim-related controversies concerning the limits of freedom of expression and the right to religious liberty. It will do this in an original and innovative manner by developing a conceptual and critical methodology that seeks to move beyond the legalistic discourse of rights through which these controversies have hitherto been addressed. In so doing, the project will contribute to new ways of understanding how to negotiate cultural and religious antagonisms involving Muslims in multicultural societies.


International Challenge AwardDr. Hongying Meng (School of Engineering and Design) has won the First International Audio/Visual Emotion Challenge (AVEC2011) Award at the fourth International Conference on Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2011) in USA, in Oct. 2011. The AVEC 2011 is an international competition event aimed at comparison of automatic audio, visual and audio/visual emotion analysis methods in the world. The goal of the challenge is to provide a common benchmark test set for individual multimodal information processing and to bring together the audio and video emotion recognition communities, to compare the relative merits of the approaches to emotion recognition under well-defined and strictly comparable conditions. This award is based on his excellent research work collaborated with Dr. Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze from University College London (UCL). They designed and implemented an intelligent and automatic emotional state recognition system for spontaneous facial expression multimedia signals and outperformed all the methods proposed by other researchers from across the world in the audio sub-challenge. Detailed information can be found at http://sspnet.eu/avec2011/


Pulitzer-Prize Winning Speaker at International ConferenceOn 15-16 September 2011 at Senate House, University of London, Dr Matthew Hughes of the Department of Politics and History (School of Social Sciences), brought together 80 delegates and speakers for an international conference entitled ‘Butcher and Bolt or Hearts and Minds? British Ways of Countering Colonial Revolt: A Historical Perspective.’ Funded by Brunel University and the US Marine Corps University Foundation, this conference examined the British ‘way’ in fighting colonial and neo-colonial rebellions, contrasting British brutality (‘butcher and bolt’) against the idea of minimum force (‘hearts and minds’), questioning in the process the notion that there was British exceptionalism when it came to fighting rebel forces. The keynote speakers included the Pulitzer-winning Professor Caroline Elkins from Harvard, speaking with Professor David Anderson of Oxford University on the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya. The papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of Small Wars and Insurgencies in 2012.


Modern GirlhoodsOn 8th February 2012, the Centre for Youth Work Studies (CYWS) alongside the Centre for Youth Sport & Athlete Welfare (CYSAW), and the Education Department hosted an event exploring contemporary young women’s lives. The Modern Girlhoods event was well attended with over 50 participants from Brunel, across the UK and further afield.

The keynote speaker, Dr Farzana Shain from Keele University explored the recent Nike sponsored ‘Girl effect’ in supporting education initiatives in the Global South. A lively debate ensued about the possibilities and challenges of development and gender within neo liberalism.

Other sessions included those on contemporary sexualisation debates, gender and celebrity and young women’s friendship and identities in and outside the classroom. In the final session of the day participants discussed the key challenges when researching young women’s lives and recent development within theory, policy and practice. Feedback from the seminar has been overwhelming positive emphasising the warm and inclusive atmosphere created by the enthusiastic presenters and audience.

CYWS hopes to build on the success of this event, and will be advertising forthcoming seminars on young people and sexuality soon. The Modern Girlhoods organising committee would like to thank all of the presenters and the Gender & Education Association, the British Sociological Association and CYSAW for their financial support.


Learning the Modern WayIn December 2011, the Centre for Anthropological Research on Childhood, Youth and Education (CARCYE), in conjunction with Brunel’s Anthropology Department, hosted an international workshop on ‘Anthropology and Schooling: Learning the Modern way’. Organised by Dr Sarah Winkler-Reid (post-doctoral Research Associate, CARCYE), Ditte Sass (doctoral candidate, Anthropology) and Dr Peggy Froerer (Director, CARCYE), the aim of this two-day event was to engage with and challenge the taken-for-granted ideologies and realities that underpin contemporary school education. Keynote speaker Professor David Lancy was joined by twenty scholars from the USA, Hong Kong, Australia, the UK and Europe in bringing the diversity and particularity of schooling into critical ethnographic focus. This workshop was the inaugural event for the newly-renamed CARCYE and served to consolidate Brunel’s reputation as the leader in the Anthropology of Education and Childhood in Britain.


Music Lecturer CD ReleasesHarald Muenz, composer and music lecturer in the School of Arts, had two important CD releases in 2011, one of which has been awarded the prestigious quarterly German Record Critics’ Award (“Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”) 03/2011 by their independent jury. This contains Hans G Helms’s legendary experimental work of 1959, with the code-like title “Fa: m’ Ahniesgwow”. Harald is also featured as a composer on a monographic portrait CD just released by Coviello Classics and funded by Kunststiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen and Kulturamt Cologne. For more information contact: [email protected]

ResearchNews LE7

ESRC follow on grant research newsIn September 2011, Dr Priscilla Harries, senior lecturer in the Division of Occupational Therapy (School of Health Sciences and Social Care) was awarded a one-year grant of £123,003 from the Economic and Social Research Council (follow on grant scheme) along with colleagues Professor Mary and Ken Gilhooly. The research is part of the programmes hosted within the Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies (BIAS). The funding was awarded to develop research impact from their two year research project led by Professor Mary Gilhooly, which had been funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme, entitled ‘Detecting and preventing elder financial abuse: decision making by professionals in health, social care and banking’.

The follow on research has directly used the findings of the previous research to design on-line decision aids to improve social care, health and banking professionals’ ability to detect and respond to financial abuse. A randomised control trial is currently underway to measure the effectiveness of one of the training tools, after which the tools will be promoted widely for professionals to access.

A website is also being produced, which will contain a variety of resources such as podcasts of experienced professionals giving their perspective on case examples and discussing the challenges of decision making in this field. When asked about what impact these training tools might have she stated:

“Although financial abuse of older people is gaining increasing recognition as a serious problem, there is little guidance to support professionals in such cases. We hope that our training aids and educational materials will be used by professionals to learn from the experiences of others and enhance their own practice. The training aids and accompanying materials will be available in September 2012.”

Dr. Harries has led several projects that have resulted in increased expertise in professional thinking. She is interested in hearing from other academics in Brunel who may be keen to study types of expert decision making and the use of on-line decision aids as a means of enhancing professional expertise.


Royal Society support for school weather and climate outreach project

Dr. Andy Russell, a lecturer from the Institute for the Environment (IfE), was awarded a £1.5k Royal Society Partnership Grant in January 2012 to lead an outreach project with two local schools. The project, titled “Why do we have the weather that we have?”, aims to get pupils from Hatch End High School and Stanmore College immersed in the science of weather and climate. The project will see Year 7-12 students take on the challenge of setting up a weather station, analysing data and making weather forecasts. They will also try to understand how and why our atmospheric conditions differ from the weather and climate of other countries and from historical observations. These topics relate directly to Dr. Russell’s research on climate change and the physics of thunderstorm development.

The Royal Society funding will be used to buy two professional standard weather stations that will be set up at the schools, which will log data online. This venture builds on previous successful school projects that Dr. Russell has run as part of the Researchers in Residence programme and for the Manchester Science Festival in 2009. Regular project updates will appear on the Institute’s twitter feed (@Brunel_IfE) and facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/BrunelIfE).


Andy Russell demonstrating the Bernoulli effect with a hairdryer and ping pong ball to describe how cloud droplet stay aloft.

Structural optimization at Brunel awarded a prize

Dr Aleksey Pichugin, lecturer in the Department of Mathematical Sciences (SISCM), has won a prestigious joint prize by the International Society for Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (ISSMO) and Springer. The bi-annual prize was awarded for a paper presented at the World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (WCSMO-9) held in 2011 in Japan. Dr Pichugin’s paper, written in collaboration with Drs Andy Tyas and Matthew Gilbert from the University of Sheffield, described a new type of optimal structure for a uniform load over multiple spans. The prize consists of the ISSMO cash prize of $1000 and a Springer book prize of €500, which will officially be handed over at the next WCSMO-10 to be held in Florida in 2013.


Brunel anthropologist receives prestigious US ethnohistory prize Dr Nicolas Argenti, senior lecturer in social anthropology in the School of Social Sciences, has just been awarded the American Society for Ethnohistory Robert F. Heizer Article Award for his article ‘Things that don’t come by the road: folktales, fosterage, and memories of slavery in the Cameroon Grassfields,’ which came out in Comparative Studies in Society and History (CSSH), 52(2): 224-254, in 2010. He was also recently interviewed together with a colleague, Prof Jean-Pierre Warnier of the Sorbonne, by the French national radio station France Inter on the subject of masks and masked performance. Here is the link to the interview, which was broadcast on the 26th of December: http://rfi.my/Axm1CO


ResearchProfilesLE8

Barbara Prainsack, Professor of Sociology and Politics of Bioscience, joined the Department of Sociology and Communications (School of Social Sciences) at Brunel in September 2011. Barbara was born in Austria, where she studied Political Science, and specialised on regulatory and social aspects of bioscience. Upon moving to the UK in 2007,

she joined the Centre for Biomedicine & Society (CBAS) at King’s College London, where together with Professors Clare Williams and Steven Wainwright she convened an MSc programme in Medicine, Science & Society. She maintains a link with King’s College London via her Honorary Senior Research Fellowship at the Department of Twin Research & Genetic Epidemiology at St. Thomas’ Hospital. Barbara has worked with this group since 2005 and collaborated with them on several publications exploring, for example, the topic of human cloning through the eyes of identical twins.

More recently, Barbara’s work has focused on the social, regulatory, and ethical aspects of DNA testing, both in medicine and in forensics. Together with Richard Hindmarsh of Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, she edited a book on the governance of forensic DNA databases (‘Genetic Suspects’, Cambridge University Press, 2010).

She has also examined regimes for the transnational exchange of bioinformation, and worked with prisoners to explore their understandings of forensic DNA technologies. A forthcoming book summarises some of the key findings of this work (Helena Machado and Barbara Prainsack, ‘Tracing Technologies: Prisoners’ Views in the Era of CSI’. Ashgate, May 2012).

Barbara’s work on DNA testing in the medical realm revolves around genome analysis and new modes of participation in the health domain. Her activities here are not limited to academic work in the narrow sense of the word; in her capacity as member of the Austrian National Bioethics Commission advising the Federal Government in Vienna, as co-chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Science’s Foundation (ESF) Forward Look on Personalised Medicine, and as GB representative in the social sciences and humanities domain of COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), an intergovernmental European instrument supporting cooperation among scientists across Europe, she also engages in policy-related work.

Her latest output is a Report on the concept of solidarity, which was commissioned by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (NCoB) and funded by the AHRC and The Nuffield Foundation. The Report, which was published in November 2011, explores how ethical and regulatory controversies in the health domain can be ‘unlocked’ with a solidarity-based approach.


Professor Barbara Prainsack | School of Social Sciences

Professor Nigel Saunders | School of Information Systems, Computing and Mathematics

Professor Nigel J. Saunders joined Brunel in 2011 as Interdisciplinary Chair of Systems Biology and co-director of the Centre for Systems and Synthetic Biology (CSSB), a new centre forming and fostering strategic research links between biological research and computer sciences and maths. Originally trained in medicine in Aberdeen, he subsequently specialised in infection, especially related

to bacterial infections, doing his specialist training in Pathology/Microbiology in Birmingham and at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School/Hammersmith Hospital in London. He then trained in molecular biology, bacterial pathogenesis, and genomics at the Institute for Molecular Medicine, in Oxford, and prior to coming to Brunel he was the head of the Bacterial Pathogenesis and Functional Genomics Group, in the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, Oxford University. Professor Saunders has also been a member and Fellow of several Oxford Colleges, and is still an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford.

Author of over 100 academic publications, Professor Saunders’ work has spanned a wide range of subjects, but over the last 15 years this has focussed upon how living systems operate as integrated systems in which critical components change and determine

behaviour. This has spanned studies from how plants control their immune responses, identification of biomarkers to classify and identify lymphomas, and how cancer cell behaviour is coordinated, to the underlying processes that lead to emergence of drug resistance in TB. But, his main area of interest is in bacterial systems and how they evolve (and can be usefully modified) to have different properties, such as those that cause two closely related species: Neisseria meningitidis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae, to cause such very different diseases (the clues to which are in their names), and what makes the differences between strains of the same species of bacteria that cause more or less severe infections.

It might seem very different, but the same tools of genomics, DNA sequencing, expression and coordination analysis, and genetic engineering needed to study pathogens as whole systems are very similar to those needed to intentionally modify and create living systems with new and exploitable properties. This is one aspect of new work currently being developed in Brunel and in the CSSB. Professor Saunders was attracted to Brunel because of its physical and intellectual collegiality and interdisciplinary strengths and complementarities.

As part of his role as an Interdisciplinary Chair, Professor Saunders is seeking to build up synergy between schools and departments and bring the power of computational, genomics, systems, and synthetic biology to research at Brunel, and several new projects exploiting this approach are currently under development.


ResearchProfiles LE9

Andreas Kortenkamp joined Brunel University in September 2011 as Professor of Human Toxicology. Before coming to the Institute

for the Environment (IfE), Andreas was based at the School of Pharmacy, University of London where he eventually headed the Centre for Toxicology.

Over the last 15 years Prof. Kortenkamp’s team have been engaged in efforts to find ways of improving risk assessment by taking chemical “cocktail effects” into account. Andreas put it like this: “Traditional chemicals risk assessment has a quite artificial orientation: it treats chemicals as if they act in isolation, when in reality there is exposure to multiple substances. Our work has proceeded in stages to improve this situation: firstly, when we have information about the toxicity of individual mixture components, is it possible to predict the effects of the combination? Working with mixtures of endocrine disrupting chemicals we have shown that this is achievable. Secondly, what is the composition of mixtures of environmental relevance, and what effects do they produce? Work on

this aspect of the mixtures issue is currently proceeding in our group. We are also interested in making an impact on chemical regulation by addressing the questions: Which chemicals should be grouped together for mixtures risk assessment? What are scientifically sound grouping criteria?”

This research has had significant political impact at EU level. For example, in 2008 the Danish Government charged Prof. Kortenkamp with organizing an international workshop on combination effects of chemicals. The outcomes of this workshop were taken forward by the Danish Government to the European Council and have contributed to the Decision of the European Council of Environment Ministers of December 2009 on combinations effects of chemicals. The group have also prepared scientific reports for the European Commission, including the State of the Art Report on Mixture Toxicology and the State of the Art Assessment for Endocrine Disrupters, a project also commissioned by the EC. Other recent projects have been funded by the EC, the Food Standards Agency, the Oak Foundation and the European Food Standards Authority. In the last 5 years, Prof. Kortenkamp has been invited to sit on panels of the US NRC, WHO and European Food Standards Authority

At Brunel, Prof. Kortenkamp aims to collaborate with established IfE researchers and with researchers at the School for Biological Sciences. Together with Dr Elisabete Silva who also joined IfE recently, Andreas has drawn up the details of a new MSc in Toxicology and Risk Assessment (http://bit.ly/toxmsc) that hopefully will accept its first cohort of students in September 2012.


Professor Andreas Kortenkamp | Institute for the Environment

Professor Ashok Kumar Bhattacharya joined Brunel University (Wolfson) in July 2011. Prior to coming to Brunel, he was a Professor in the department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford. Along with his expertise, Professor Bhattacharya bring his research group to Brunel and a €20 million innovative, sustainable bio-refinary research project (SUPRABIO) funded by the European Union 7th Framework Programme (FP7).

He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Churchill College and received his PhD degree from the University of Cambridge. Subsequently he was elected to 1851 Exhibition Research Fellowship which he took up at Cambridge. While he was at the University of Cambridge he was invited to join ICI. Having spent a few years in the corporate sector he joined the University of Warwick.

Professor Bhattacharya takes a systems approach to research and therefore works in collaboration with a number of complementary research organisations to carry out work of industrial and social relevance. With the aim of facilitating his research work he set up a unique multi disciplinary research group comprising of physicists,

chemists, material scientists and chemical and mechanical engineers at the University of Warwick. He was a Reader and Director of this group known as the Warwick Process Technology Group.

His research interests lie in two areas: First, in the development of small scale intensified distributed processes (energy and renewable sector) and also intensified embedded processes (automobile and aerospace sector) and secondly, in nanomaterials and thin films science and technology for device manufacture.

Whilst at the University of Warwick, he started a successful Masters programme on Process Business Management by bringing in Warwick Business School and the departments of Engineering, Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and Law. From Warwick he moved to University of Oxford as Professor of Engineering.

He has published extensively in Peer reviewed journals and has in excess of 150 papers; he also has several confidential industrial reports and patents.

At Brunel Professor Bhattacharya would like to augment research activities already being carried out in areas of energy, renewable and nanotechnology and device manufacture. He is particularly interested in bringing in various research groups within Brunel to work together on integrated research projects.


Professor Ashok Bhattacharya | Wolfson Centre

ResearchContractsLE10

Prof Dmitry ESKIN (PI) Prof Zhongyun FAN (Co-I): European Commission - ULTRAGASSING - development of a degassing system for aluminium casting processing based on ultrasound, £273,761

Dr Brian MCKAY (PI) Prof Zhongyun FAN (Co-I): Korea Institute of Industrial Technology - Characterization & processing of High Thermal Conducting AL-MMCs, £33,787

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA (PI) Prof Ian SUTHERLAND (Co-I): European Commission - GP-TCM - Good Practice in Traditional Chinese Medicine Research in the Post-genomic Era, £2,803

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA: EPSRC Industrial CASE Studentship, £69,121

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA (PI) Dr Ian GARRARD (Co-I): National Agency of Drug and Food control (NADFC) - Develop countercurrent chromatography applications for the standardisation and safety of Indonesian Medicinal Plants, £5,500

Dr Jesus OJEDA: Royal Society - Bioavailability and fate of manufactured nanoparticles on microbiota: The interactions between nanoparticles and soil and water microorganisms, £14,694

Dr Claire DONOVAN: ESRC Fellowship - Measuring Cultural Value (Phase 2), £49,914

Prof Andreas KORTENKAMP: European Commission - CONTAMED: Contaminant mixtures and human reproductive health - novel strategies for health impact and risk assessment of endocrine disrupters (transfer-in), £273,987

Prof Andreas KORTENKAMP: Food Standards Agency - The combined effects of aneugenic benzimidazoles and other aneugens which act by disrupting microtubuli assembly (transfer-in), £50,266

Prof Luiz WROBEL: EPSRC - Engineering Doctorate (Parnaby Scheme), £120,375

Prof Luiz WROBEL: Various EngD sponsors

- EngD Industrial contributions for 2011/12, £73,883

Prof Hua ZHAO (PI) Dr Jun XIA (Co-I): Technology Strategy Board (TSB) - Feasibility study of 2-stroke uniflow for extreme downsizing DI gasoline engines, £69,609

Prof Kai CHENG (PI) Dr Richard BATEMAN (Co-I): European Commission - EuroEnergest - increase of automotive car industry competitiveness through an integral and artificial intelligence driven energy management system, £319,616

Prof Kai CHENG (PI) Dr Atanas IVANOV (Co-I) Dr Richard BATEMAN (Co-I): Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) - Development of the functional surface µ-texturing module with application to micromilling: design, analysis, performance testing and applications, £35,832

Professor Tat-Hean GAN: European Commission - X-SCAN - Laser-guided inspection robot for the non-destructive testing of thin steel gauge welds in the shipping industry, £282,670

Dr Mizi FAN: EPSRC - Industrial CASE Studentship, £69,121

Dr Yunting GE: Spirotech BV - The investigation of air bubble sizes and quantities in wet heating systems, £30,000

Dr Geraldine BARRETT: University College London (UCL) - Pre-pregnancy Health and Care in England: Exploring Implementation and Public Health Impact, £19,888

Dr Priscilla HARRIES (PI) Prof Mary GILHOOLY (Co-I): ESRC - Developing decision training tools to enhance the ability of professionals to detect and prevent financial elder abuse, £92,743

Dr Cherry KILBRIDE: ACPIN - Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Neurology - Neurological Splinting Practice Guidelines for Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists, £10,000

Dr Mary Patricia SULLIVAN (PI) Prof Mary GILHOOLY (Co-I) Professor Christina VICTOR (Co-I): Alcohol Research UK - Use as abuse: A feasibility study of Alcohol-related Elder Abuse & Neglect, £4,952

Dr Mark POOK: University of Oklahoma (Additional Funds) - Properties and Determinants of GAA repeat instability, £17,353

Dr David TREE: Nuffield Foundation - Nuffield Science Bursary, student vacation research: control of asymmetric cell division in Drosophila germ-line stem cells by the planar cell polarity genes, £1,520

Dr Julie BARNETT: European Food Information Council (EUFIC) - Energy Balance & the role of Dieticians in Europe, £159,371

Prof Terry YOUNG: MATCH Plus Grant MATCH Affiliate Scheme - Multidisciplinary Assessment of Technology Centre for Health – Internationalisation, £183,398

Prof Martin SHEPPERD: EPSRC MICaPASE - Metacognitive instruction, confidence and prediction accuracy in software engineering, £42,043

Prof Zidong WANG: Royal Society - Modelling, Analysis and Synthesis of Internet-Based Networked Control Systems, £12,000

Prof Xiaohui LIU (PI) Prof Gautam MITRA (Co-I): Optirisk systems - Methods of Optimal Portfolio Construction with Target Returns and Downside Risk Aversion - Maths CASE studentship (with EPSRC), £9,000

Prof Nauro CAMPOS: Department for International Development (DFID) - (Additional Funds) - Secondment of Professor Nauro Campos, £68,956

Prof Clare WILLIAMS (PI) Prof Steven WAINWRIGHT (Co-I): Wellcome Trust - The ethics of translational research: from ‘unnatural entities’ to experimental treatments. (Transfer-in), £549,346

Dr Vassil GIRGINOV (PI) Dr Lee ROMER (Co-I) Dr Pascale KIPPELEN (Co-I): Podium - London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games Knowledge Transfer, £7,000

Dr Laura HILLS (PI) Ms Amanda CROSTON (Co-I): Streetgames - US Girls/Active Women Consortium (Sub contract), £12,780

Professor Asim RAY: European Office of Aerospace R & D (USA) - (Additional Funds) - Design of novel organic thin film transistors for wearable electronics, £12,659

Prof Ashok BHATTACHARYA: European Commission - SUPRA-BIO - sustainable products from economic processing of biomass in highly integrated biorefineries, £1,394,396

Dr George FERN (PI) Professor Asim RAY (Co-I): St George’s - University of London - VIPRE - Viral surface Plasmon Resonance, £14,592

Contracts Awarded Quarter 1 (1st August - 31st October 2011) Total: £4,407,937BCAST

HERG

ETC

School of Engineering and Design

Health Sciences and Social Care

SISCM

BIB

School of Social Sciences

School of Sport and Education

Wolfson

Institute for the Environment

ResearchContracts LE11

Contracts Awarded Quarter 2 (1st Nov - 31st January 2012) Total: £ £4,053,852

Prof Zhongyun FAN: CRV Constellium Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Liquid Metal Engineering (LiME) - INDUSTRIAL SPONSORSHIP - Research Fellowship: CRV Constellium - Evaluate potential uses of melt-conditioned 6XXX extrusion alloys £300,000

Dr Hari-Babu NADENDLA: EPSRC The development of effective grain refiner for the production of high performance light metal castings £121,144

Dr Hari-Babu NADENDLA: Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA New Grain Refiner - Initial Trial & Feasibility Study £49,758

Dr Hari-Babu NADENDLA: EPSRC Industrial CASE studentship £69,121

Prof Ashleigh BRAGANZA: British Council - India Travel Grant to India, UK-India Staff Exchange Programme, UKIERI £3,000

Dr Gabriella SPINELLI: DAIWA ANGLO-JAPANESE FOUNDATION UK-Japan partnership on ageing studies £9,000

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA (PI) Prof Ian SUTHERLAND (Co-I): Syngenta Ltd Syngenta Feasibility Study £7,000

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA (PI) Prof Ian SUTHERLAND (Co-I): BioFocus (Additional Funds) - BioFocus scale-up feasibility study £2,401

Dr Svetlana IGNATOVA (PI) Prof Ian SUTHERLAND (Co-I): BioFocus (Additional Funds) - BioFocus scale-up feasibility study £23,251

Prof Julia FOX-RUSHBY (PI) Dr Subhash POKHRE (Co-I)L: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Assessing the costs and benefits of breastfeeding £55,771

Dr Louise LONGWORTH: National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Non-invasive methods for the assessment and monitoring of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis £97,897

Prof Andreas KORTENKAMP: Oak Foundation Combined exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals - bridging the gap between science, chemicals risk assessment and regulation

£96,811

Dr Edwin ROUTLEDGE (PI) Dr Mark SCRIMSHAW (Co-I): European Commission UV-Mon - An integrated and modular bio-monitoring ballast water treatment system based on advanced UV plasma technology delivering maximum performance and lowest system lifetime cost £112,195

Prof John SUMPTER (PI) Dr Mariann RAND-WEAVER (Co-I): AstraZeneca Mode-of-action Ecotoxicology of Pharmaceuticals £45,000

Dr Anshuman MONDAL: AHRC After Rushdie: Muslims, Freedom of Expression and the Politics of Controversy £75,750

Dr Sharon BAURLEY: EPSRC Artefact Cafe: a local ‘open design’ and fabrication hub £50,205

Prof Mizi FAN: European Commission CELLUWOOD - Laminated strong eco-material for building construction made from cellulose-strengthened wood £252,542

Professor Tat-Hean GAN: European Commission INTELWIND - Development of an intelligent condition monitoring system for application on critical rotating components of industrial-scale wind turbines £444,212

Professor Tat-Hean GAN: European Commission PLASTRONICS - Development of an automated digital radiography system for the inspection of plastic electronics £314,642

Professor Tat-Hean GAN: European Commission AUTOINSPECT - Automated inspection for sintered parts by non-destructive techniques for improved quality in production £264,707

Dr Lionel GANIPPA: Finning Power Systems Understanding the mechanism of NOx emissions from diesel engines that are powered using oxygenated fuels and renewable biodiesels £66,000

Prof Peter HOBSON (PI) Dr Paul KYBERD (Co-I): Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC, now ssc.rcuk ) (Additional Funds) - GridPP4 provision of support for the Brunel contribution to the London Tier-2 £68,000

Prof Peter HOBSON: The Leverhulme Trust Artist in Residence - Mrs Jayne Wilton £14,300

Prof Peter HOBSON (PI) Dr Roger POWELL (Co-I): Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC, now ssc.rcuk ) GridPP networking infrastructure (DRI) - Brunel T2 grant (upgrade

for Tier 2 data centre) £161,500

Dr Zhaohui HUANG: EPSRC Modelling localized fracture in composite floors at elevated temperatures (transfer in) £284,971

Dr Atanas IVANOV (PI) Prof Kai CHENG (Co-I): European Commission MIDEMMA - Minimizing Defects in Micro-Manufacturing Applications (‘RTD/Innovation’ account) £155,594

Dr Atanas IVANOV (PI) Prof Kai CHENG (Co-I): European Commission MIDEMMA - Minimizing Defects in Micro-Manufacturing Applications (‘Demonstration’ account) £26,949

Dr Atanas IVANOV (PI) Prof Kai CHENG (Co-I): European Commission MIDEMMA - Minimizing Defects in Micro-Manufacturing Applications (‘Other’ account) £30,847

Dr Tatiana KALGANOVA (PI) Dr Maysam ABBOD (Co-I): Caterpillar Logistics Inc Demand Strategy Modelling (sponsored studentship) £31,847

Dr Ashraf KHIR: Teleflex Inc Investigation into timing performance of medical device £125,000

Dr Busayawan LAM: AHRC Securing the value of Co-design for Community-based Organisations £27,230

Prof Savvas TASSOU (PI) Dr Yunting GE (Co-I): GEA Searle Improve efficiency and reliability of CO2 gas coolers £55,000

Dr Gareth TAYLOR: National Grid Developing and deploying novel operational stability control systems for high voltage DC links (HVDC), quadrature boosters (QB) and thyristor controlled series compensation (TCSC) £56,000

Dr Mark YOUNG: Ordnance Survey Application of user centred design to geographic data products (PhD studentship) £31,000

Prof Nigel SAUNDERS: Meningitis UK Microserological determination of N. Lactamica induced cross-protective meningococcal immunity (transfer-in) £26,891 (Jointly with SISCM)

Prof Nigel SAUNDERS: BBSRC Developing methods for inferring regulatory mechanisms from intact systems: a neisseria case-study (transfer-in) £79,245 (Jointly with SISCM)

Dr Cherry KILBRIDE: Torbay Care Trust CAST project - predicting difficulty in caring for the arm after stroke and developing a longitudinal profile of impairment and disability £1,397

continued on page 12...

BCAST

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School of Engineering and Design

Health Sciences and Social Care

School of Arts

Brunel Business School

Institute for the Environment

BIB

ResearchRound-Up LE12ESRC Demand Management Strategy

As a result of an increasingly low application success rate, the ESRC has introduced a demand management strategy as a way to reduce the number of proposals they receive. This currently entails providing details to individual institutions of their success rates to allow for self-regulation, concentrating on submitting fewer, higher quality proposals. They will review the progress of their initial demand management strategy in the Autumn of 2012 and, depending on their findings, may introduce more formal demand management measures.

In response to this agenda, the University has already undertaken a number of initiatives, including:

internal selection for major calls;•

enhanced proposal quality assessment;•

internal peer review. •

In addition, an ESRC strategy working group has been convened to consider new initiatives that will support Brunel academics in the development of high quality grant applications for the ESRC. Current initiatives arising from this group include a targeted group of experts for institutional peer review for all ESRC proposals, additional training and support for ESRC proposal writing, a more strategic approach to key ESRC funding programmes and profile raising for Brunel’s excellent social science research.

RSDO will keep colleagues updated on activities arising from this group – keep an eye on our intranet and Blog for news.

RSDO Blog: http://rsdo.wordpress.com/

For further information please contact: [email protected]

SISCM RSDO ContactsRSDO General Enquiries Michael Sterling Building, Office 259 Tel: 01895 266 200 Fax: 01895 269 748 Email: [email protected] Intranet: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/research/rsdo Internet: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/business/rsdo RSDO Blog: http://rsdo.wordpress.com/ [email protected] Director of RSDO, Teresa Waller | Ext 66206

[email protected] PA to Director, Jean Grimshaw | Ext 66200 Research Development Section

[email protected] Deputy Director, RSDO | Ext 66390

[email protected] Research Development Manager (EU) Ext 66129

[email protected] Research Support Officer | Ext 67792

[email protected] Communications and Systems Officer | Ext 67398

[email protected] Research Support Officer, EU (p/t) | Ext 66897 Contracts and IP Section

[email protected] Manager, Contracts and IP Section | Ext 66196

[email protected] Contracts and IP Officer | Ext 67846

[email protected] Research Administrator | Ext 65238

[email protected] Consultancy Administrator (p/t) | Ext 66201 Business Development Section

[email protected] Head, Business Development and Innovation | Ext 66390

[email protected] Business Development Manager | Ext 65231

Dr Tony ELLIMAN (PI) Dr Vishanth WEERAKKODY (Co-I) Dr Anastasia PAPAZAFEIROPOULOU (Co-I) Dr Laurence BROOKS (Co-I): European Commission eGovPoliNet - building a global multidisciplinary digital governance and policy modelling research and practice community £40,034

Prof Panos LOUVIERIS (PI) Prof Zidong WANG (Co-I) Prof Xiaohui LIU (Co-I): Ministry of Defence (Additional Funds) - Cyber Defence Decision Support Tool £63,511

Prof Panos LOUVIERIS: Ministry of Defence DUST - Dismounted Urban Sensors & Targeting £64,521

Prof Panos LOUVIERIS: Dstl Commercial Services Research PhD - Intelligence fusion for cyber situational awareness & situational understanding £32,020

Dr Simon TAYLOR (PI) Prof Terry YOUNG (Co-I): Technology Strategy Board (TSB) KTP with Whole System Partnership £130,390

Prof Zidong WANG: Royal Society Distributed Network systems with Link/Node Failures: Analysis and Synthesis (with Prof Yugang Niu, Shanghai) £6,000

Dr Sharon LOCKYER: Sir Halley Stewart Trust Exploring the potential of disabled comedians in improving the lives and experiences of disabled people £3,080

Dr Sarita MALIK: AHRC Diasporic Film in Communities: A scoping study of the relationship between screen culture, stakeholders and communities £31,124

Dr Harriet DISMORE: Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) Attitudes towards learning among former apprentices who progress to higher education £3,000

Dr Vassil GIRGINOV: Podium A series of public lectures inspired by London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games £2,012

Dr Carl HULSTON: Yakult UK Ltd MSc Studentship: Effect of Yakult ingestion on diet-induced insulin resistance in humans; a pilot study £3,948

Dr Louise MANSFIELD (PI) Prof Tess KAY (Co-I): Sport England Evaluation of further education sport pilot projects £10,000

Dr Heather MENDICK (PI) Dr Robert TOPLIS (Co-I) Dr Dawn LESLIE (Co-I): Institute of Physics (IOP) Student and parent evaluation of IOP ethnic diversity pilot project £10,271

School of Social Sciences

School of Sport and Education

LeadingEdge

Leading Edge Spring 2012

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Transcript of Leading Edge Spring 2012